Monday, June 9, 2014

When I
first began listening to this record by Ashley Paul, I will admit that my
interest was piqued. By the end of this,
however, I had to admit that I was full on ready to track down Ashley Paul’s
entire discography and listen to it—and the amazing part is that this is only
two songs. That was all it took to
convince me!

The
first of the two songs begins with some high pitched screeching noises, perhaps
to ward off the fake listeners. Low
bass then comes in, followed by strings and piano and this just becomes a
beautiful mess. There is singing, it
can be out of tune on the whole sometimes and often times it is just so ear
piercingly sharp that it might drive dogs crazy.

“Leave
Mine”, the song that really got to me, has a tropical island slide feel to it
before the reverb hum kicks in and the vocals once again return. It would be so easy to say, “Oh, here’s
another female first name and last name that sounds like this other female
first name and last name”, but this just simply cannot be done with Ashley
Paul.

This
music is unique. It is poignant. It is art in its truest sense of the
word. It takes all the preconceived
notions you have about what music should be and throws them back in your
face. And you are thankful for
this.